Word Count: 4,490
Warnings/Spoilers: No specific warnings for this chapter, although there is talk about difficult memories and PTSD-type symptoms and coping methods. If you've made it this far, it's the sort of talk that is desperately necessary.

After months of feeling alienated from the team, it didn't surprise him that now everyone wanted to talk with him and find out what happened and why he hadn't been talking and making suggestions about what he might need. Hen recommended therapy and Chimney invited him to a night at the bar (which Hen had admonished) and Bobby mentioned the LAFD's counselling service and Buck had politely listened to all of it without really hearing a thing. He had spent months keeping up a façade that had crumbled to pieces because of some woman drowning in her backyard pool and all the care and attention was, frankly, overwhelming.

By the time his shift was over, he was ready to crawl into bed, pull the blankets over his head, and refuse to emerge for a month.

He'd been home an hour, was nursing his second beer while staring at the darkened TV screen with a blanket wrapped around his trembling shoulders, when there was a knock at his door. He sighed, wishing Maddie had listened when she'd called and asked him a thousand questions that meant she had definitely spoken to Chimney – or at the very least, received a lot of very worried texts from Chimney – and so she knew something was wrong with her baby brother and needed to come over and mother him.

Except he wasn't a baby anymore and he hadn't needed a mother in years and it annoyed him that she felt the need to check on him despite his protests that he was fine and he was halfway through determining how to grump at her and make her leave as he opened the door when he stopped, hand clenching on the doorknob a little tighter than was strictly necessary when he froze on the spot.

"Can I come in?"

He stared at Eddie, dressed casually in jeans and a green flannel shirt. Buck absently wondered if it was as soft as it looked, before dismissing the errant thought as quickly as it had entered his head and rolling his eyes to step to one side.

Eddie entered, hands shoved in his pockets, and looked almost as awkward as Buck felt as the door clicked shut behind him. "I, uh- I managed to get Carla to look after Christopher tonight."

Buck's eyebrows rose towards his hairline.

One of Eddie's hands escaped his pockets to rub at the back of his neck, his eyes darting around Buck's general shape without really settling on anything. It was disconcerting to say the least because Eddie was usually the calm and collected one and Buck tended to be the one who floundered around with nerves and uncertainty.

"Look, I'm just going to say it, okay? You've been through some serious shit this past year, Buck, and that leaves marks on people. The earthquake, the tsunami, the crush injury and the embolism, tracking down your sister after she'd killed-"

"Why are you here?" he croaked, because he couldn't stand to think about Maddie covered in blood, and he couldn't stand to think about the panic he'd felt when he realised Doug had found her, and he couldn't stand to think about the blood that covered his skin which was his and not-his as he searched for Christopher after the second tsunami surge, and Eddie's wandering gaze finally seemed to settle on him and realise how shaken he was.

"I've been in wars," Eddie said, something fragile in his voice as he swallowed and the Adam's apple in his throat bobbed but he still held Buck's gaze steadily. "I've seen stuff that no one should ever see. And I know that…that losing Shannon, and then when I ran into you at the VA hospital and I realised I hadn't even thought about where you and Christopher were – I just assumed you'd both be safe because I couldn't allow myself to stop and think – and then when I saw Christopher and I swept him in my arms and I saw you collapse and I hadn't even considered how you were because I was so focused on losing my son and finding my son, I-"

Eddie paused, shaking his head and glancing at the ceiling briefly as he exhaled a slow breath and Buck wasn't sure he'd ever seen the other man so unhinged with all his words. When the breath was finally released, Eddie returned to looking at Buck.

"Buck, I know what it's like to shut yourself away and I- I'm here, you know? I'm here to listen and look out for you. I said I'd always have your back and I do. I always will. Because you look out for me, and you look out for Christopher, and that…that's something to stay for, isn't it?"

Buck blinked, trying to take in the way Eddie's thoughts seemed to zip between different situations and scenarios and fragments of conversations he barely remembered and yet knew had happened. Buck had long ago cut out the parts of his heart that felt anything until it stopped hurting to wake up, still breathing and still alone, every morning when he was practically banned from talking to his closest friends.

"I want to be able to help," Eddie said, inching half a step towards Buck and biting the corner of his lower lip. "I want to be there for you, the way you were there for my son. I know I've said thank you, about a million times until you're probably sick of hearing it, but I- I don't think I've ever apologised. After the suit and the fallout… I think- I was angry at you because I felt like I was losing you too, and Christopher and I have already come so close to losing you so many times this year after losing Shannon, but I- I don't think you understand how I owe my entire damn life to you, Buck. If I'd lost Christopher-"

"That's why I kept looking for him."

And dammit if Buck's voice didn't break in the middle of that sentence because he never would have been able to forgive himself if Christopher had died, or gotten lost among the water and the debris and never been found like so many other victims who were named and searched for and, ultimately, never recovered. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself. He would have gone to some other state and ensured he couldn't be identified and then died, because he deserved to be as unrecoverable as Christopher could have been. Sometimes it was already hard enough to live with the guilt that they'd been at the pier that day, that he'd lost Christopher for so many hours in such a terrifying situation. But if Christopher had died…

"I know," Eddie whispered, eyes shiny with unshed tears as he inched closer. "I know, Buck. And if I could do anything that would take away all your pain, then I'd do it in every heartbeat I have left because that's how much what you did for me and for Christopher means to me. You know that, right?"

It took him a while to concede a small nod, the crushing feeling of rubber bands circling his chest making it harder to breathe than he was willing to admit as he struggled under the weight of all his guilt and shame and despair and devastation. Everything he'd seen that day, everything he'd heard… He'd just kept shoving it further and further down.

"When I got out of the water with that woman and heard Bobby shouting your name and I looked over and saw you sinking towards the floor with a hand to your chest, I thought you'd thrown another clot and it had hit your heart," Eddie admitted, and Buck marvelled at how steady Eddie could keep his voice because there was no way he could've reacted calmly.

He couldn't help but think about all the times Eddie might have delivered terrible news to family or friends in the wars, when he'd returned from deployment and had to face the relatives of those he'd lost on the battlefield. Eddie had a way of keeping all his difficult emotions under lock and key, rarely revealing how he felt, but he could tell Eddie's emotions were raw around the edges because there was a distance that kept flickering in his expression.

"I thought- All I could think as you fell to the ground was not again and I was terrified that this time…" Eddie finally shook his head and looked away, fixing his gaze on something on Buck's wall and blinking rapidly. The unsaid sentence hung heavy in the air and the implications were the loudest noise in the room.

"I'm okay," Buck mumbled but he knew it rang hollow after everything that had happened, because it could've been so easy for his blood to clot again and he could've hit the ground and been dead before any of his team could have done anything, and he knew Eddie saw straight through his bullshit front now too after his meltdown by the pool.

"I keep feeling terrified that I'm going to lose you and then I-" Eddie's voice fractured and he huffed a deep breath, and Buck started to see the emotions bleeding through the cage that Eddie trapped them in, the rims of his eyes reddening. "I don't know how I'd find the words to explain to Christopher that you're gone too. He lost his mom, Buck. I lost Shannon. But I- We can't lose you, too."

Buck stared at Eddie, confused and uncertain and in so many fragments that he feared everything he felt and everything he thought was fully exposed to Eddie. He didn't know where to begin picking himself up anymore so he went for the easiest response. "I'm still here."

"I know." Eddie met his eyes again, a solitary tear finally streaking down his cheek before he could wipe it away and his lips pressed together, one way and then the other, eyebrows scrunching in apparent annoyance that he'd let his guard down. "But tonight isn't about you trying to comfort me. Tonight is about me making sure you get some rest and reminding you that you aren't alone."

Buck opened his mouth to protest but Eddie silenced him with a look he'd almost certainly developed as a single parent with a ray of sunshine for a son who was still prone to the odd tantrum over bedtimes and toys.

"Please, Evan. Can I hug you?" Eddie asked and Buck wondered if he'd ever stop feeling so surprised by Eddie.

He nodded and Eddie moved quickly to wrap his arms around Buck's shoulders, like he was afraid Buck would change his mind and reject the embrace. For a moment, he stood with his arms awkwardly caught at his sides before it became clear Eddie wasn't after a short hug but wanted one that lingered, like when Bobby had held him upright by the side of the truck. Buck gradually returned the hug by settling his arms more comfortably around Eddie's waist, feeling the muscles of Eddie's back shift beneath his fingers when Buck tried to subtly adjust the arrangement of hands against the bruises, and feeling the way his fingers settled into the grooves of Eddie's ribcage.

"Is this okay?" Eddie murmured, head tilted to almost be resting on Buck's shoulder, and Buck tried not to shudder at the warm breath that tickled across his neck.

He nodded instead of answering, holding onto Eddie for God only knew how long until some of the anxiety and sadness and tension and panic and exhaustion that he always seemed to feel these days began to unspool from his shoulders. The haphazard breathing thing that always seemed to make him hitch half-breaths started to lessen when his erratic heartbeat evened out the longer Eddie held him. He also was incredibly alert to the ability to feel Eddie's heart thumping against his fingers.

By the time Eddie pulled away a few inches to survey his face, Buck felt more pliant and loose than he had in months and desperately didn't want to stop being in Eddie's embrace.

"You okay?" Eddie said and Buck nodded, content to stay wrapped in Eddie's arms the rest of the night if it meant all his tangled emotions faded away or morphed into something he could manage on his own again. "C'mon."

Eddie tugged him towards the couch, sitting on it and then insisting Buck lay his head on a pillow in Eddie's lap. His legs ended up dangling over the arm of the couch and it wasn't exactly comfortable but then Eddie started combing lazy fingers through his hair and Buck decided the comfort of his legs was the smallest possible issue when Eddie was doing that.

"You're just doing that so I'll start talking," he said with a small pout towards Eddie, who grinned almost wickedly.

"If the shoe fits," Eddie said with an innocent attempt at a shrug and Buck rolled his eyes, before Eddie's expression sobered. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to, though. I just thought… I figured it might relax you. It helps Christopher when he's feeling particularly stressed or upset."

Eddie wasn't wrong. It was incredibly relaxing to have Eddie's hand casually running through his hair and he was warm and gentle, his thigh beneath Buck's head firm with muscle but also soft. But Buck feared closing his eyes because he was still afraid of what he might see, even being sprawled in Eddie's lap and knowing he was safe in his apartment. He hesitated, his gaze wandering around the ceiling and the corners of the room and his chest cramping with fears he hadn't voiced aloud for months.

"I couldn't save him," he admitted, avoiding Eddie's eyes looking at him and chewing his bottom lip until the pain gave him something else to focus on. "In my dreams or when I- When something happens, like today, it all just comes rushing back and hits me like a truck or a tsunami. And I should know, because I've been hit by both."

The joke fell flat in terms of making Eddie laugh but it did defuse a little of the nervous tension between them when Eddie tugged at his hair lightly.

"But it- it's not just the tsunami," he continued, fingers balling against his stomach and picking at the fabric of his shirt just for something to do when he felt like he'd have more success peeling the skin from his body. "I'll wake up sometimes after a nightmare of the truck on me, unable to feel my leg, and it'll take me a few minutes of feeling it and running my fingers over the scars to be certain it didn't get amputated. Or I'll be choking on my own blood, or sea water. And I-"

He struggled to breathe around the pain cinching around his neck, knotting in his throat, and he struggled to keep his eyes open because if he closed them, he knew what he'd see now that he was talking about it. Eddie's nails scraped lightly at his scalp, grounding him for a moment from the thoughts tugging him towards the abyss.

"I- I've attended so many versions of my own funeral, Eddie, and I've died in so many ways every time I close my eyes the past few months that I can't- After how close it felt in the elevator, and then you just leapt into the water today, everything just- I couldn't- It all came back, more real than any of the nightmares."

"Evan," Eddie breathed, horrified recognition leaking into his tone.

Even though he didn't want to, Buck closed his eyes so he didn't have to look up and see whatever Eddie's face was doing. White flowers danced on the edge of his vision, and his team dressed in black clothes, and Maddie dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes. He'd dreamt it so many times that it was startling how real it felt, like an actual memory rather than something he'd just imagined in the dead of night.

"I didn't realise it was so bad, man," Eddie said, fingers light against Buck's temple. "I'm- Shit, I'm so sorry for not shoving you against a locker and getting all of this out of you sooner."

"I'm not sure it would have made any difference. I haven't wanted to talk about it," Buck said with a weak, wobbly sort of smile. He refused to entertain the idea of being shoved against a locker by Eddie and how he'd probably just taunt the other man into hitting him so that a broken rib made him feel something again. "I still don't, for what it's worth."

Eddie hummed, curling his fingers through Buck's hair and twisting some of it between his thumb and index finger. "You know those sorts of nightmares aren't normal, right? That the panic attack you had on the call today isn't normal?"

His muscles tensed, his eyes flashing open to catch Eddie staring at him and his eyes were filled with that care and concerned thing again which Buck instinctively felt like he needed to reject, because he had made so many mistakes and endangered Eddie's son and that had to count for something, right? "It's not like everyone needs to know what's going on, Eddie."

"No, but…" Eddie frowned, thumb smoothing over Buck's temple and around his birthmark in a series of steady circles. "Most of the crew already know something is up after seeing you go to pieces by the pool. We've known for a while you haven't been okay because you haven't been eating with us and haven't been talking around the station, but after the lawsuit… Bobby thought you might need the space, that you might feel overwhelmed and push us away even further if we kept pushing you and asking if you were okay, so he… He said we should only intervene if we suspected you were being self-destructive and just…give you some time to process…"

Eddie paused and Buck had the awful feeling that the fear and the anger and the hurt had flickered in his face for a fleeting second but Eddie had seen it anyway. He didn't know what had given him away, or maybe something had crept into his eyes, but sure enough, Eddie's eyebrow rose in a silent question that made Buck's intestines twist into a figure-eight around his stomach.

"I haven't- I mean- I- I've probably drunk too much on the off-shift days but it's- I have it under control," he said, and even if he'd wanted to sound convincing, he knew he hadn't. He wasn't good at lying when Eddie was gazing at him, fingers smoothing through his hair.

Eddie hummed again but there was more disbelief this time than the last. "Like you've got your fear of water under control?"

"That's not- That's- That's different," Buck protested but Eddie was staring at him with absolutely no amusement and Buck knew his lies were as transparent as glass now that Eddie was starting to put all his feelings under the microscope, unearthing all the secrets he'd been trying to bury. "The water nearly killed me, and Christopher," Buck pointed out and Eddie flinched, like it was something he hated thinking about as much as Buck. Maybe how close Eddie had come to losing Christopher kept him awake at night too. He remembered overhearing Eddie talking to Maddie at a dinner Bobby had after the tsunami, before the lawsuit, where he'd told her he felt so guilty because he hadn't even realised they were missing. Buck had tried to pretend he hadn't heard it. Once the lawsuit happened, it seemed irrelevant.

"That tsunami was just- Eddie, I saw so many dead bodies, so many people swept away that I couldn't save, and I was with Christopher… And that was- You will never understand it. You might wake Chris up from his nightmares and you might talk with Bosko about it but it's… I can't explain it to you in ways you'll understand, and honestly I'm glad you'll never understand it because it- It's not something else you should have to deal with on top of everything else you've gone through." Buck glanced up at Eddie, at the mournful shimmer in his eyes, and he was definitely glad Eddie couldn't truly understand. "So drinking a bit is a…a way to block it out for a while when I get home from a shift, and that can help me sleep without waking up wondering if I still have all my limbs attached or why I'm not drowning anymore."

"And how has the alcohol and blocking it out been working out for you?"

Buck grimaced at the accusatory tone, pulling himself from Eddie's lap even though he was fairly sure he'd stay there as long as he could if anyone actually asked. But Eddie's question rankled his nerves because he refused to feel more ashamed than he already did. He was just trying to survive. He was just trying to keep living another day, putting distance between him and the disaster that nearly cost him his life until it no longer hurt so much.

"I don't need an intervention staged by our recovering Captain, Eddie. I'm not an alcoholic."

"Good, because I wasn't suggesting one. Yet." Eddie's hand clasped his shoulder, tugging him back into paying attention with the pain that flared through his awareness. "What I am suggesting is you start realising how deeply flawed your logic is because drinking so you can sleep is self-destructive, Buck."

Eddie's thumb pushed against a coil of tension beneath his skin and Buck shut his eyes, struggling to suck in a breath through all the emotions that Eddie kept making him feel with his words and his touches alongside how tender his skin was with the bruises. He'd spent so long trying to make himself immune to how Eddie's presence made him feel and now it felt like he was drowning in it again, wanting to press closer and at the same time needing to cloak himself in space to restore the boundaries he'd erected between them.

"And when you realise your logic is a mess, then we need to help you get over your fear of water. Or we need to help you stay sober on your days off so you can think straight when you're on shift rather than turning up still hungover. If you realise there are problems in what you're doing or how you're feeling, we can – and will – set up systems to support you. You know that," Eddie insisted, the amount of confidence infused in his words leaving no opportunity for Buck to try to argue against it. "The whole 118 would have your back, just like I have since I joined the 118. We save perfect strangers every time our alarms go off so you'd damn well better believe we'd all pitch in to save one of our own when we've all been hearing the alarms going off about his wellbeing."

Buck hadn't realised how badly his hands had started shaking during Eddie's speech – did it count as a tirade when Eddie was so calm and so assured? – until Eddie's hand shifted from his shoulder and down his arm, fingers curling loosely around Buck's wrist as the older man shifted closer behind him and held him in a slack sort of half-embrace.

"Please, Evan. Let us help," Eddie murmured against his ear as he hooked his chin over Buck's shoulder and Buck would later pretend that it was the use of his first name which got through to him, and not the way he felt safe and protected by Eddie holding him like that.

He managed a small nod and allowed Eddie's arms to fold around him in a stronger bear hug. Eddie's tactility had never surprised or bothered him – Eddie had a young son, after all – but it did feel like a lot when Buck still felt undeserving of the compassion and warmth. And especially when Buck had been avoiding getting too close to anyone for months. Distantly, he'd started believing he was cursed.

"So what do we do now?" Buck eventually asked, because Eddie stayed silent for too long and being held like this was rapidly becoming awkward when he had deeply buried feelings he knew Eddie didn't.

Eddie shrugged, making Buck's whole body move with the action too. "You find a movie or a TV show we can watch. In about an hour, we'll order pizza that doesn't have pineapples but might have mushrooms because Christopher's not here or we can call that Japanese place you like. And when it's finally time to get some rest, hopefully you'll feel relaxed enough knowing that people care about you that it keeps the nightmares away. And if not, I'll be here on the couch and can wake you up."

"You- What?" Buck said, blinking rapidly and glancing over his shoulder at Eddie sitting pressed against him with an incredibly nonchalant expression on his face. Eddie was going to sleep over?

"I told you Christopher is with Carla. I'm not leaving you tonight. Not after the panic attack today, not after you've finally started talking and I'm not convinced you'd be okay if I left after stirring up all those emotions and memories." Eddie squeezed him. "Opening up is scary and facing all the thoughts is difficult. You think I'd leave you alone with all that and expect you to sleep peacefully?"

"I- I don't know," Buck struggled to formulate a coherent thought because Eddie was staying over. Eddie was staying over. And Eddie might've woken him from a nightmare before, but it still wasn't something Buck particularly wanted his friend to witness again. It wasn't something he wanted anyone to witness, frankly. Once was easy to dismiss as an irregular event. Two no longer reeked of being an anomaly. "I don't want you to feel like you have to be here."

"Being here for you would never be something I feel forced into," Eddie assured, tilting his head until it bumped into Buck's. "Let me take care of you, Buck. Even if you say no, I'm not leaving you without a fight and I have a kid. I guarantee any stubbornness you want to attempt, so has he – and he always loses and so will you."

Buck huffed a small laugh despite how every cell in his body seemed to pulse with negativity and disgust, unwilling to allow Eddie to see him when he felt so low and lost and yet equally desperate not to feel alone anymore. "I really can't argue with you?"

"Not a chance," Eddie declared and Buck sighed, still filled with misgivings but relaxing into Eddie's grip. He didn't really have the energy to argue anyway.

~TBC~